Tuesday, June 3 Zrenjanin

Another long one today! We arrived at 8:30 for our planned 8 am tour of the Novi Sad archives. After an hour we went to our next tour of the Museum of Vojvodina. Meanwhile, I went with Stasa to cash the traveller’s cheques that I had brought for his fee. They had to fax them all to Belgrade, wait an hour for approval, then fill out a bunch of paperwork in the branch. All together, an hour and a half. That puts us an hour behind schedule and we still have a tour of the Petrovaradin Fortress that Stasa had planned, putting us another hour behind schedule.

Our first village stop was in Indija. Unfortunately, the Giroux twins met with disappointment there. Although we were able to enter the church, we learned that there is nothing left in the cemetery from the old days. Many years ago, the cemetery was cleaned out and the remains buried in a mass grave. Apparently, some were also dumped into a pond somewhere. Anyway, there is nothing there to see. This image is a representation of Jesus in his tomb.

Then we had to make a tough decision. Carol had hoped to see Belgrade because her mother had worked there. The distance to our next stop was about the same through Belgrade or by going back to Novi Sad, but Stasa estimated that it would be 1-1.5 hours longer through Belgrade. Carol decided that the other stops were more important and agreed to take the quicker route.

We reached Knicanin/Rudolfsgnad about an hour later. The first thing we did was drive down the lane at the foot of the protective dike. We stopped, climbed the dike, and descended to the river on the other side. The dike is 20-30 feet high and there is a band of trees from the foot of the dike to the river, a distance that Frank paced off as 200 yards.

When we returned to the bus, we were met by one of the locals who lived beside where we were parked. He was most friendly, inviting us for a drink, then a coffee, then offering to kill and roast a goat for us. We finally convinced him that we did not have time and escaped, saving the life of some lucky little goat.

We then drove south of town to the monument to the mass graves from the post war interment camp, retuning to the cemetery to observe that monument also.

We knew from our previous trip that the old German part of the cemetery was practically inaccessible, but we snooped around anyway. We were about to leave when the twins spotted a headstone visible in the bush near the path. They investigated more closely and found that it was one of the names that Frank and Diane were interested in. Frank and Diane were on cloud nine when they investigated and found that it was the stone of their great great grandmother! We made another “quick” stop to take a picture of a house that might have been where Frank’s family lived. Needless to say, we were soon surrounded by a crowd of locals and our stop lasted considerably longer than planned.

We finally made it to our hotel about 7, ate a delicious meal about 8, and broke up the party about 9. Marta Istvan, one of Frank’s research contacts, arrived shortly afterwards and some of us had a short meeting with her while she ate her meal. I then retired to my room to blog, catch up on the accounting, and prepare for tomorrow. I hope to be done by midnight.

Another very warm day today.

We will probably be out of touch for the next few days as we will be in quite rural areas. Internet is very slow tonight causing postings to bog down. Will try to post picture later.